Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) said that President Joe Biden should “seriously” consider preemptive pardons for members of the House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection, warning that President-elect Donald Trump’s recent remarks were making him sound like a “tinpot dictator.”
In an interview with Meet the Press, Sanders said he was “nervous” about the impending resignation of FBI Director Christopher Wray, who announced he planned to step down before the end of his 10-year term.
“You know, when Trump talks about sending to jail people who were on that Jan. 6 Committee, that sounds like being a tinpot dictator,” Sanders told host Kristin Welker. “So I would hope that we have an FBI and a Justice Department that protects the civil liberties of the American people and does its best to protect American democracy.”
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The week prior, Welker sat down with the president-elect, where he stated that members of the Jan. 6 committee “should go to jail.” Trump quickly added that he would not direct his attorney general or FBI director to investigate committee members.
Throughout the 2024 campaign, Trump has also repeatedly promised to pardon Capitol rioters as one of his first moves in office. In an interview with Time magazine published last week, Trump said he would start reviewing their individual sentences “in the first hour that I get into office,” later amending that to “maybe the first nine minutes.”
When asked whether Biden should consider preemptive pardons for members of the Jan 6. Committee, Sanders said “I think he might want to consider that very seriously.”
But the Vermont independent also dismissed Trump’s call to jail the committee members, calling his remarks “outrageous. Sanders said he believed “a lot of Republicans” would line up against the proposed prosecutions, citing Welker’s interview with Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) just moments before. When asked if he thinks the members of the Jan. 6 committee should be jailed, Graham gave a firm “no” response.
Sanders, one of the most progressive senators in office, has seemingly softened his tone towards the incoming administration in recent days—even offering rare praise for Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, the two billionaires charged by Trump with leading a “Department of Government Efficiency,” for promising to make defense spending more efficient.
On Sunday, Sanders also said he was open to working with the president-elect to raise the federal minimum wage. Trump previously said he would “consider” raising the $7.25 minimum, which has not seen an increase since 2009.
“I tried, I think, two years ago, to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour. We got zero. Not one Republican supported it,” Sanders said.
